POLITICAL POINTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 131, 29 November 1902, Page 12 (Supplement)

POLITICAL POINTS.

"It is absolutely necessary," says Mr. Waddell, the i\ew South Wales Treasurer, ''that the Government should proceed with the utmost caution for iome yeuis to come." Sir Edmund Barton thinks it is no business of the Commonwealth to protest against tho South Australian. land concessions for the construction of a railway to Port Dam in. Senator Matheson, of the Commonwealth Parliament, complains that the gairhon at the Albany foits is a laughing stock. It consists of five gunners and eight officers. The West Australian Treasurer states that the rise in the Stale's 3j per cents, is probably due to the fact that his Budget statement showed that ho did not propose to go upon the London money niaikel for some time. Recently he had been offered by a London firm any sum he required, from a half to three-quarters of a million, at 3£ per cent., but he could not see his- way to take the money at the price. He indicated a price at which he was prepared to accept. Speaking of Canada's experience of preferential trade schemes rivently, Sir Edmund Barton said, "I did not see any sign in Camioa of any intention to abandon a protective system. 1 could not tiace any desire on the part of the Launer Ministry to do this. Nor did I discover any wish to make preferences which would result in the destruction of any local industries. 1 found that the psople are ready to extend the preferential system so as lo give even greater facilities to British importations, and to raise tno ordinary tariff so as lo check an over large influx of goods ironi the United The author" ties of the Dutch Reformed Church have applied to the Government at Pretoria ior financial assisrt'inee towards the r«-erectiou and lepair of churches destroyed or damaged in the course of the war. They d*velt upon the potent part which the granting of such assistance would play in creating a feeling of contentment and reconciliation under° the new regime. In a pastoral letter to the congiegations the S3 nodical Session of 'the Church exhorts the members loyally to accept the new Government, and to lend brotherly co-operation in promoting the welfare of the land and the people. The Federal Parliament will, Sir Edmund Baiton thinks, meet some time between the beginning of March and the end of June. •» A case was heard in Melbourne last week in which plaintiif sought from a committee of spirt importers allowances for "lobbying" during the tariff debate in the Federal Parlament. The United States Courts have decided thwt Isabella. Gonzales, a native Porto Rican woman, cannot be admitted to the port of New York— being by birth an alien, and also an undesirable one under the immigration laws, because she is unmarried. These is no contention that this Porto Ricau woman would become a public charge, since she has relatives on Staten Island rich enough to fight her case in the United Slates Courts. She is denied admittance to "the land of the free" (says an American contemporary) ' ali though she has no flag under heaven except that of the United States. 'I'he following extract from Mr. Chamberlain's recenfT speech on the Education Bill will be read: with interest in view of the local Bible-in-schools agitation :—"I: — "I say to you again, are you prepared at this date to forgo all religious teaching in the national schools and to leave that teaching entirely to voluntary enorl? At the present moment there are a good number of Churchmen who have accepted that view and who would be prepared to-mor-row to accept a policy which would make the State teaching absolutely secular and leave it to the voluntary organisations to provide at their own' cose a religious teaching for the children. I should be delighted if I thought that that were acceptable to the majority of people. Notwithstanding all that has been heard to the contrary (writes The Times), it appears from the resent army enquiry that tlie Remount Department comes as near 10 absolnte perfection as^any institution in this imperfect world. Properly read, this report is valuable and interesting^ just because it illustrates the inveterate attitude of the War pffice mind. What the report directly deals with is not the administration nut the administrates of the Remount Department, and upon those it pours the official whitewash with copious liberality. The iaea that an incompetent person who is doing his stupid beat should b<. superseded, even in momenta of national crisis, by a competent person, is foreign to the whole scheme of military thought. The dominant motion is that, when once a man has go a post, he has a vested right to continue in it unless he does something unworthy of a gentleman. The administration may be bad, but the results are complacently explained by pointing out failures all round as if they were entirely extraneous events over which no one can have any control. France is reorganising the general government of French West Africa. The Minister for the Colonies has decided to increase the authority of the GovernorGeneral in order to make him the absolute and responsible arbiter in. all administrative or political matters. To this end the Governor-General, in the Minister's view, should be aole^ to use public money within certain limits as he thinks fit, and should, moreover, be dispensed from all responsibility >of himself having to spend all his time' in the direct administration of any particular cokmj r . The new Governor-General becomes as powerful a person&ge as any British Viceroy. He will have a special Council and a General Secretary, and will be responsible for the government of Senegal, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast,- and Dahomey. Now that biam has her boundaries east ajid west carefully and precisely defined, and is rid of the French garrison at Chentabun, she finds herself free at last to make concessions lo France which she was not hitherto in a mood to make. It is affirmed, in fact (says The Times), that she intends to lose no time in manifesting her goodwill by asking France to. help her in tbe organisation of a State Department of Hygiene, in which the personnel will be mainly French. M. Combes, the Irer.ch Premier, in a recent speech on French foreign relations, soid : — "Since the terrible year, since the recovery of France from the lamentable collapse causad by the maddest and most short-sighted war, France has clung to peace wHh a firmness anl fixity of purpose never belied. No other Power has pleaded the cause of peace in the councils of Europe with more warmrh and convic- | tion. Not from weakness or timidity has France adopted this pacific altitude. She is conscious of her strength. France is more and more in favour of the civilising doctrines which divert nations from warlike ideas, enlighten them on laeir true interests, and making thorn perceive the real sources of public prosperity, as of private happiness, in the fecundity of peace." In the West Australian Legislative Assembly the other day, Mr. Hopkins pave ■ notice of his intention to ask the Premier: (1) Whether the present, or tbe previous Government, mndc overtures to the Colonial Office bearing on the issue of the birthday Lontmrs to West Australian Civil Servants; (2) whether the Premier will lay tl'u: copy of imy on the table; (3) whether, if the answer be no, lie will ask the Kerrelary of State to kindly inform Partowmenfl on whose recommendation the t distinction to 0 West Australian Civil SesviUit has been conferred..